Author: A.T.

The rule of law — and democracy — are mortal.

We’ve already begun losing the rule of law.

Democracy is already faltering.

Rachel Maddow grabs us to make sure we’re paying attention.

“Democracy is losing the propaganda war,” writes Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic:

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Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.

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And boy are they succeeding.  Not reading her piece — or watching Maddow — won’t make these huge threats any less real.

All we need do for democracy to triumph is win big in November.

Help?  Volunteer?

Unlike the Germans and Italians who freely elected wannabe dictators (who then soon were) nearly a century ago, we have the benefit of hindsight.  We can see what happened.

[If Monday’s short post — Part II of “Should Joe Debate?” — arrived garbled, as it seems to have for some of you, please try again.  It’s been fixed.]

Everyone agrees our Southern border is in crisis.

Only Trump stands in the way of fixing it.

Rosa DeLauro is mad as hell (60 seconds).

Everyone knows Trump is guilty of trying to overturn a free and fair election . . . and of stealing government documents he lied to the FBI about not having.

Thanks to Merrick Garland, those cases may never come to trial.

Bill Maher is mad as hell (7 cathartic minutes).

And then there’s Gaza.

So much reason to be mad — and cry.

If only Hamas had accepted Gaza’s 2005 victory — Israel’s unconditional retreat — and built a prosperous society instead of an underground war machine (60 seconds).

Hamas hiding among and below innocent women and children, intentionally causing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians to die, is beyond horrible — but not genocide.*

Because yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day, it’s worth remembering that the Brits basically carved out a Jewish state after two-thirds of Europe’s Jews were purposely exterminated.  That’s genocide.

*About 2 million Palestinians live in Gaza, 2 million in Israel (as citizens, 10 of them in the Knesset), and 2 million-plus in the West bank.  Because Hamas has used Gazans as human shields, one-third of one percent of the Palestinian civilians in the region have died.  Again: beyond horrible.  But not genocide.

In response to my thoughts last week:

Ed Costello: “Why not refuse to debate unless Trump admits he lost the 2020 election?”

→ So simple.  And brilliant.

If he “agrees” — and then, once the debate starts, says something Trumpian like, “I only said that so I could get Joe on stage and get the truth out to the people” — the moderators should be prepared with endless questions on just this one topic (“why did your own head of election security, Chris Krebs, call it ‘the most secure election in history?’ after all, you told us repeatedly that you appoint only ‘the best people’ — did you appoint an incompetent to this important job?” . . . “why did all 62 judges, many of them your own appointees, in all 62 cases you brought alleging election fraud, throw you out of court?” . . . “you have called former vice president Dick Cheney a ‘great guy,’ yet in light of the way you have conducted yourself since you lost the election, he says that ‘in our nation’s 247-year history, there has never been an individual who is greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump’ — can you explain why?” . . . and on and on) until his head explodes.

Kathleen M:  “Debates would need to be done without an audience with questions being asked by League of Woman Voters or a suitable other group of regular citizens in order for me to even consider Joe Biden standing on the same stage with the current defendant.”

→ That, too.  And as proposed in the piece I linked to last week, the moderator would have to have a mute button to prevent either candidate from interrupting the other.

In case you missed this:

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. . . To put it bluntly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has put his country’s worst religious extremists in jail, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put his country’s worst religious extremists in his cabinet.

And therein lies a tale. . . .

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There is great danger at this unprecedented moment, Friedman argues — and huge opportunity.

Worth reading in full.

He’s announced that he will.

I think there are two good options:

OPTION #1

He announces he’s changed his mind after reading this article — and refers all further inquiries to that article.

OPTION #2

He debates, with this opening statement:

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Donald is a better debater than I am but a much worse candidate to be President and let me tell you why:

[turns to Trump]

Donald, you’ve proven yourself to be a serial liar and a loser who cannot lose gracefully or even admit defeat.

> You write love letters to dictators who murder journalists and political opponents.

> You’re a tool of Vladimir Putin in his quest to conquer Ukraine and reconstitute the former Soviet Union.  The only part of the 2016 Republican Party platform you touched — the only part! — was not about real estate or taxes or the problems of working men and women – it was about weakening our support for Ukraine. 

> You failed to improve on Obamacare even though you claimed to have a secret plan to deliver — and I quote — “terrific health care at a tiny fraction of the cost.”  The only piece of that plan you revealed was Step One: REPEALING it.  Your Republican colleagues voted over and over — 52 times! — for repeal but never succeeded, thank God.

> You failed to make any progress on infrastructure, even though you called week after week “Infrastructure Week.”

> You don’t do your homework.  Being a GOOD president requires a lot of actual work, not just watching TV, throwing paper towels to hurricane victims, and playing golf.

I could go on and on, but the biggest reason you would make a terrible president is that what you really want to be is a dictator, not a president.

That’s in part because you admire dictators — you even started your 2016 campaign with a quote from Mussolini, for crying out loud — and in part so you can shut down the multiple criminal cases pending against you, for which you are currently out on bail.

So go ahead and win this debate by being loud or bullying or making up what you call “alterative facts.”

But no matter how many $60 Bibles you sell quoting “two Corinthians” to raise cash to pay your lawyers, may God keep you from realizing your unAmerican vision of vengeance and retribution.

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I’m good with either option.

The second would actually give him a chance to be heard — even on Fox — by people who don’t usually hear “our side” of things.

It would give him a chance to quote Trump’s staunch Republican critics, starting with Nikki Haley, who aptly dubbed him the “chaos” President . . . Tucker Carlson (in private texts he never expected to become public) . . . and dozens of Trump’s own high-level appointees . . . and, for sure, Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, using their words from before Trump bullied them into submission, the way “strongmen” (think Putin and Mussolini) do.

There would have to be some ground rules — read that article — but they would apply to each candidate equally.

Let me know your thoughts.

1990 — Barbara Walters interviews a young Donald Trump (2 minutes).

Now — Time interviews an old, multiply-indicted Trump.  If he wins, how far would he go?

You need read only up to the point that you’re sufficiently alarmed to ask how things could possibly have gotten so far.  And what we can do to save ourselves, as the Italians should have saved themselves from Mussolini and the you-know-who should have saved themselves from You-Know-Whom . . . whose book of speeches, while married to Ivana, Trump kept by his bedside.

How — Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy reveals how we got here, what we’re up against, and why we need to do everything we can to help and volunteer.  

I’ve finished Life After Power, having now power-walked through the after-presidencies of William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush.

There’s so much more to these men than I knew — much of it good — and in the course of telling their stories, the author inevitably writes about those they succeeded and preceded . . . so before you know it, you’ve romped through nearly the full, relatively short, American experiment.  Which hangs in the balance November 5.

During a recent walk, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack killing 2,403 (roughly twice the number killed by the Hamas surprise attack) and as I reached the top of a small hill, Truman wreaked devastation on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That got me thinking about the similarities to — and differences between — what we did to Japan and what Israel is doing to Gaza.

One obvious similarity: Both are horrifying and unspeakably awful and sad.

No one can feel anything but anguish at the loss of innocent Japanese and Palestinian civilian life.

Another similarity: All that either Japan or Hamas would have had to do to prevent the horror was to surrender — or, better still, not attack in the first place.

A third similarity: Cult worship.  The Japanese were suicide bombers for their emperor, a demi-god of sorts.  Hamas are pawns of Iran’s Ayatollah.  I’m not suggesting equivalence, but both sets of attackers were zealots for a cause, not — as with Putin’s conscripts — attacking simply for fear they’d be shot if they failed to.

Differences:  Japan’s target was military.  Their attack killed approximately one out of every 50,000 Americans.  Hamas attacked kibbutzim and a music festival, killing one out of every 8,000 Israelis.  Nor was it ever the long-standing, openly-stated aim of the Japanese to drive all Americans out of their country and into the sea.

This isn’t to minimize the grievances of the Palestinians, nor is it to blunt criticism of Netanyahu, who has long been a disaster.

But just as many around the world felt — and still feel — the U.S. was justified in ending the war in the way it did — and then helping Japan become the hugely successful democracy it now is — so one might hope many around the world would feel the Israelis are justified in attempting to win the war against Hamas.

Hamas has said it wants to destroy Israel; Israel does not want to be destroyed.

The hope was when Israel voluntarily withdrew from Gaza in 2005, forcing all its own settlers to leave, Gaza would become a prosperous, peaceful neighbor.  Instead, Hamas spent 20 years shooting rockets into Israel and directing most of their resources and foreign aid toward building a war machine, purposely putting their women and children in harm’s way.

Arafat was the first culprit, rejecting a two-state solution.

Hamas — threatened by the prospect of a deal with the Saudis and others that would have ended their dream of destroying Israel — chose to murder, rape, and kidnap, knowing it would unleash all-too-imaginable death and suffering on their fellow Palestinians.

The well-meaning American college students who took Hamas’s side the day after the attack — weeks before Israeli bombs fell — and whose campus organizations, Noa Tishby asserts, are in some cases financed by Iran without their realizing it — should read her book.  Was the attack really justified?  Was Pearl Harbor?  Was Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?

It is an excruciating situation for the Palestinians; Israel and her allies must flood Gaza with aid; the hostages must be returned; Netanyahu must go; and the grand bargain with the Saudis, et al, to secure peace and prosperity for both Israelis and Palestinians, is the hope of virtually everyone in the world save Hamas and Iran.

But I digress.  I really enjoyed Life After Power.

[HOUSEKEEPING NOTE]

I am seven miles high as I write this — who knows what kind of Internet connection I’ll have while “abroad” — so apologies in advance if something I’ve “pre-posted” shows up on a day when the entire world is focused on ALIENS WHO HAVE LANDED, inexplicably dressed in gingham, waving their six arms and hopping like kangaroos . . . while I’m posting about being a loud sneezer.  I didn’t know.

Are we going to remain a multi-cultural democracy “built on an idea” — a beacon of hope to the world?

Or will we become a white Christian fascist nation as envisioned by many in the 1920s (see: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them) . . .

. . . and then again in the 1930s (see: Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism) . . .

. . . and now again today (see: Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff)?

If you don’t have time for those page-turners, here it is in three minutes from Thom Hartmann.

He writes, in part:

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Trump kicked off the formal part of his campaign back in 2016 by tweeting a famous quote from Benito Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” When Chuck Todd asked him about it on Meet The Press, he said: “It’s a very good quote, it’s a very interesting quote, and I know who said it. But what difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?”

Through most of the 1920s, America had a positive fascination with Italian fascism. Hitler and Franco wouldn’t come to power until 1933, and Tojo didn’t rule Japan until 1941: back in the ’20s we had little idea where the fascist movements would end up.

One of Mussolini’s most famous speeches was 97 years ago next month, his “Ascension Day” declaration of May 26, 1927, in which he outlined fascism’s true goals.

One of his first points was the need for Italian racial purity: “It is social hygiene; it is prophylaxis on a national level. These individuals are being removed from circulation just as a doctor quarantines an infected person. . . . ”

Speaking to a nearly all-white audience in Minnesota, Trump echoed Mussolini’s admiration for the racial purity of the crowd: “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota. … Every family in Minnesota needs to know about sleepy Joe Biden’s extreme plan to flood your state with an influx of [Black] refugees from Somalia, from other places all over the planet.”

Mussolini tolerated no opposition either within his Fascist Party or within the government itself.  He ultimately outlawed all political opposition, bragging about it in his Ascension Day speech: ”Opposition is not necessary for the functioning of a healthy political regime. Opposition is foolish, superfluous in a totalitarian regime like the Fascist Regime. … Therefore let no one hope that after this discourse anti-Fascist newspapers will be seen. No! Nor that the resurrection of anti-Fascist groups will be allowed. Never!’”

Trump has a similar view of political opposition, and has pledged to “go after” Democrats and the media if he gets back into the White House. Saying that Democrats want “to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream,” five months ago, using “vermin,” one of Mussolini’s favorite words, he added: “[W]e pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” . . .

And here in America, being “rooted out” may be the least of the worries of elected Democrats and members of the media if Trump gets reelected. He has long history of embracing violent rhetoric and encouraging violence among his supporters. On January 6th he came right out and told his followers they’d “lose” if they didn’t “fight like hell” against Congress and Mike Pence to keep him in the White House.

. . .

Mussolini wanted a single-party state, purged of opposition, supported by the largest corporations in Italy. . . .

Trump is pitching a similar vision, supported by the neofascist ideologues behind Project 2025 and Agenda 47, claiming the Democratic Party is so extreme it’s a threat to America that should be avoided or done away with.

“The Democrats have become too extreme,” Trump told an Iowa rally. “And they’ve become, frankly, too dangerous to govern. They’ve gone wacko.” He added that Democrats are pushing the “politics of anger, division and destruction.” A week later, he explicitly warned about the “radical Democrat mob.”*

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It’s really worth three minutes to read in full.

BONUS

Just out today:

The Inflection Election: Democracy or Fascism in 2024? 

“Written with searing clarity and biting humor.” — Lawrence Tribe

Filled with quotes and lists and tidbits to keep us focused on how real this all is.

E.g., Trump on his 2020 defeat:

“A Massive Fraud of this magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Bertrand Russell on how fascism happens:

“First they fascinate the fools and then muzzle the intelligent . . . by emotional excitement on the one hand and then terrorism on the other.”

Carl Sagan:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this — we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.  It’s simply too painful to acknowledge.  Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

If you have money, click here. To become a social ambassador, click here (and share with your list!).

*Trump famously “projects.”  What he says here is true of him, not us.  What, after all, is “wacko,” “dangerous,” or “extreme” about a strong bipartisan bill (he scuttled) that would have solved the border crisis?  About rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure?  About siding with Ukraine instead of Putin as we once sided with the Allies against Hitler?  About favoring a half century of settled law called Roe v. Wade?   Or lowering the cost of prescription drugs?  Or taxing billionaires and corporations?  Or even — heaven forfend — teaching kids American history, warts and all? 

(Yes, “woke” and bail reform, while well-intentioned, did go too far; but that pendulum has already begun swinging back toward common sense.)  

My brother-in-law* is a priest.

He does nothing but good.

His church looks great, too.  An eye for design run in his family.

It’s hardly news that Christ’s teachings have done worlds of good — but that great harm has been done in his name, too.

(“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” you can just hear him moaning in frustration — “that’s not what I intended for you to do!”)

Which brings us to Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy, the new film just now steaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Google Play.

YOU MUST SPEND THE $2.99 AND WATCH THIS FILM.

More than alarming — and it is that — it’s so revealing as to what we’re up against, how we got here, and why we need to help and volunteer.

*had marriage been legal back then

It’s hard not to hold this court in contempt.